Library director to retire

Liverpool  On March 6, Liverpool Public Library Executive Director Jean Armour Polly announced to her staff that she would retire 30 days later, on April 6.

Polly, 61, was appointed director in July 2009. Prior to that, from 2002 to ’09, she was assistant director of the library in charge of its systems and technology department. She previously worked at the library from 1976 to 1992, when she left to pursue Internet-related projects and write books.

“We thank her for her years of service,” said LPL Board President Natalie Scavone. “She has done amazing things to bring our library forward actually beyond the 21st century, it seems to me.”

Polly’s decision to retire from the library came a week after the funeral of her 89-year-old mother, local author MaryLee Armour. One of her post-retirement goals is to write a memoir focusing on her mother’s final years.

“Mom wrote me thousands of emails as her health began to deteriorate,” Polly recalled. “I’d like to follow her journey through dementia. Maybe it could help somebody else.”

She also plans to work on a major genealogy project and perhaps do some consulting.

Polly, who was raised in the village of Liverpool and educated at Syracuse University, became interim director of Liverpool Public Library in February 2009 after then-director Elizabeth Dailey was appointed as head of Onondaga County Public Library in Syracuse. During Polly’s five years at the helm here, the Liverpool Library has seen significant changes.

“We’ve instituted a number of innovations,” Polly said. The library now has three media banks from which patrons can access discs and DVDs and is increasing its collection of e-books. While traditional book circulation steadily declines in libraries nationwide, Liverpool Library has started circulating non-traditional items such as roku boxes, family history video kits, GPS units, bird-watching kits and ukuleles.